Friday, September 28

Yes folks, the new one is shipping from Monday... and as usual, our 68 pages are crammed with hard-ridden goodness. So if you need to up your sub or just buy a single copy, head straight to theGKM store.

Alex Zambinski and his crackin' WR special are on the cover, with all of this to look forward to inside:

Monday, September 24

"When you are sad and lonely, and have no place to go
come and see me baby, and bring along some dough
And we'll go Honky Tonkin', Honky Tonkin',
Honky Tonkin', honey baby
We'll go Honky Tonkin' 'round this town."

If you read this blog or the magazine you may have seen this bike before... the Panhead I built with my buddy Buzz when I lived in Australia. In the few years I had it, it ran strong and fast without any mechanical intervention; I had slipped the engine in to the Paughco frame from a donor bike and then adopted a 'if it ain't broke...' attitude, so never had it apart.

It was a bit of a shock therefore to buy my second Pan here and find it to be relatively gutless in comparison (before the rebuild at least) and now I know why...

The current owner of my old Aussie Pan contacted me for information on its build and by chance had talked to the bloke who'd originally built the engine; my friend Roger also knows the same bloke, Cory, who works part time at Pacific H-D in Gosford.

The engine is a '55 right side case mated to a '73 left side Shovel alternator case (this much I knew), but I've just found out the bike was running S&S stroker flywheels and oversize barrels, as well as an Andrews cam and flowed heads. Capacity was 86 cubic inches.

Monday, September 17

I've been chasing down a feature on this bike for years. And now, finally, Mark managed to shoot it for me whilst it is under the care of Caleb at CRO Customs. It's a beautifully subtle custom '59 Duo Glide with shovelheads, built by Thomas Torjesen when he worked at Salinas Boys.

Saturday, September 15

Whilst wandering around the Trip Out showground, I met Dave Bevan, with most of his BSA Bantam's engine in bits in front of him on the grass. I commiserated with him, because it was a familiar scene to me. My first old bike was a D1 Bantam and it broke down on every journey I ever made on it. Dave had bravely come all the way from Nottinghamshire on his post-boy's favourite, and on his return sent me his recollections of the trip. So if you're enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning, have a read:

Turn On, Tune In, Trip Out, Break Down.

Life moves too quick for me, most – if not all – of the
time: over half a lifetime spent smoking and tripping hasn’t helped memory
recall much either, and at best, post any given event, I can only manage to
salvage snippets and glimpses of what occurred, rather than whole, solid lumps
from the recesses of my mind…also, as I said, life moves just too god-damn
quick. That being said, here’s some of the mangled, snatched
glimpses, retrieved from the weekend of the 7-9 September, 2012, better known as the inaugural Trip Out.

Friday 7th September, 2012; Skiving work for the
day in order to ride the small red machine (’57 BSA Bantam D3, held together
with cable-ties, a wing and a prayer, my first bike, a learning curve,
transport, a love affair…) from Nottingham, bound for a farm somewhere in the
wilds of rural Bedfordshire. Kicking her over, she sounds rough, really rough,
rougher than usual…I get to the end of the road before realising half the carb
isn’t attached to the bike any longer, must have fallen off last time I rode
the l’il fucker. The bike stalls and dies, after retracing the short ride down
the road, looking under cars for the missing air-cleaner, I have to push her
back home. Really fucked off, I grab the helmet off my melon and make to lob it
across the garage, only for it to get caught up on the washing-line and bounce
back, straight into my face, breaking my glasses and splitting my nose wide
open, pissing blood everywhere.

A few dazed minutes, phone calls and a lot of tissue paper
later, and I’m driving over to Leicestershire one-handed, the other holding
tissue to my face to stem the bleeding, to pick up a replacement air-cleaner
from a fella who deals in such things down there. Get back, clean the rust out
of the thing, fit it, consider still riding down to make the Friday night Dice
party, but feeling woozy from the lost blood and knowing the meagre limits of
6v lighting on dark country roads I fuck off Friday as‘just one of those days’ and plan to
leave bright and early Saturday morning instead.

Saturday 8th September, 2012; Up bright &
early to load the Banty with stuff for the weekend, so-long to the missus and
the cats and away I put-put-put into a beautiful, crisp Nottinghamshire
morning. Fill up with 2-stroke and make a mental note of the mileage (1995) so
I won’t run dry.

There’s no traffic about and the city soon falls away to
reveal the rolling countryside of rural Nottinghamshire -becoming -
Leicestershire - becoming - Northamptonshire, etc…the b-roads are as clear as
the early September air, which the bantam merrily turns hazy shades of blue
with 2-stroke fumes. The countryside and county lines breeze by and The Trip
Out is ahead. There is nothing I’d rather be doing than this.

On one of the rare stretches of A-road that my route takes
in, whistling along merrily minding my own business, I’m suddenly surrounded by
the low level thud of Milwaukee honed engines as 3 Hells Angels flying the
colors fly past me on both sides, all with thumbs up…a few miles on, I in turn
pass a row of about 8 or 9 oldies sporting high-vis vests, all on Honda C50
mopeds and get the same greeting/reaction. What’s my point? I don’t have one I
don’t think…two wheels good…

Blasting through tiny villages such as Kimbolton and I can
feel the thing, the reason for this trip looming close…just past a huge,
stately home and the put-put-put of archaic BSA engineering suddenly stutters
& dies. Check the mileage – 2094 – good one dickhead! 100 miles to the
gallon is the name of the game, and I’d been enjoying myself so much I’d
totally forgotten to check up on such insignificant things as fossil fuel
depreciation.Push the bike the
mile-or-so back into the village to top up and hear the unmistakable thud of a
Harley blast past. Meet the fella at the pumps on a long & low Sportster
and shoot the shit for a while…”You’re close man…about 8 or 9 miles down the
road…cool, cool, catch you inside,…have a good’un…yeah, yeah…” and away he
goes, and I follow suit.

9 miles must feel longer on a Bantam than a Harley, but
eventually a sign for The Trip Out appears and I swing a right expectantly. All
of a sudden she ups and dies again, right there on the road to the fucking
shebang! Petrol’s good, know that much at least…check sparks, nada, shit!
Where’s the sparks gone? Removing the points cover reveals a set of points that
are slipping, rather than opening & closing, and on closer inspection I
notice that the metal pivot which should be holding the rocker-arm in place
isn’t there, at all…where the fuck could that have got to?

By this point, several rodders & bikers have pulled over
to help, god bless ‘em, what a fine bunch they are…eventually a greaser in a
black Chevy pulls out a yellow plastic screw which is about the right diameter/thread
to hold the points in place…I whack it in and mercifully it holds, for now, and
the Bantam kicks back into life. Phew. I wont have to push her into the show at
least…

I ride up to the sign-in desk to say hello and figure out
where to put myself and the bike…a bit giddy from the heat, the ride, the
breakdowns and fix-ups I manage to knock my bike over and then fall over it
myself, right there in front of everyone. Real cool, slick. They’re a good
natured bunch though, and help me up, laughing and wondering out loud how much
I’d drunk on the way down…they point me in the direction of the field and
thankfully she restarts on the 3rd kick as I stutter away into the
field, back-firing a couple of times for good measure due to the timing, and
myself being retarded. Amazing machinery scatters the scene every-which-where,
folks are smiling, the sun is shining, and I’d just about made it…life is good.

I decide to fix the points before the more pressing issues
of setting up camp and getting drunk distract me further. Find a metal bolt to
replace the bright yellow plastic fella currently holding my points together
and whip the head off to reset the ignition timing properly. This was a mistake
as several of the cylinder head studs are stripped to buggery and no amount of
new nyloc nuts nor borrowed super-glue can change that. The banter from
interested/amused/passing folks whilst I was fettlin’ away more than made up
for my mechanical short-comings however, including a long chat to Dean’s (of
Dice Mag fame) ol’ man about the merits (or lack of) of owning a Bantam as a
first bike, being a roadie for jet-setting bands and lawnmower servicing
techniques amongst other such stuff… I slap it all back together and hope for
the best and forget all about the shaky head issues. Cider and skateboarding
helps with this.

I get my tent up as the sky burns down in what must have
been the best sunset of the year thus far, before getting drunk and stoned out
of my gourd with a great bunch of wizard-like cockney bikers who entertain with
tall tails of their expert tuning techniques (“make the bike go really fast,
then explode”) and the world’s biggest cat (the weight of an Irish Setter
apparently) before I get involved in some erratic shape-throwing on the dance
floor, eventually dieing the death under fake canvas skies.

Sunday 9th September, 2012; Coming to early on
Sunday morning, I stagger up and out of my cocoon and stumble bleary-eyed out
into another stunning sun rise. Its my mam’s birthday today, and there’s a
table booked back in Nottingham for a meal at 6pm this evening, that and the
loose cylinder-head fears of yesterday lurk back into my hung-over
consciousness as my eyes struggle to deal with the hazy brightness of the
morning. Several strong cups of tea and last wanderings around the bikes &
hot-rods scattered about the field later, I turn my thoughts homewards, and
whether-or-not the ol’ hunk of crap would get me there…

By the time I’ve packed up & loaded my stuff on the
bike, there’s a good amount of folks up & about and the thought of the BSA
not co-operating in public so early in the day doesn’t fill me with joy.
Mercifully, she starts second kick, and trying to not look too
surprised whilst nodding so long to various folks I’ve met over the weekend, I
bobble back across the field and back out onto the road. I make it about 2 miles before she dies due to the makeshift
job holding the points in place failing and the points slipping again. Some
light-fingered adjustments and swearing and sweating it later and she’s up
& running again and so am I, whistling along northwards through the
deserted Bedfordshire countryside, wondering, or rather, trying not to think
too hard about how far I’ll get before the points give away again and I’m back
on my knees in the dirt, screwdriver in hand and terrible words under tongue.

The sun beats down and we’re doing okay…the points are
holding, the cylinder head is holding, the sleeping bag stuffed untidily under
a bungee is holding, I’m holding…its amazing how quickly thoughts swing from
one end of the spectrum to the other. 10 trouble free miles under my belt and I
catch myself thinking “well, if its holding, I might as well leave it be once I
get home” and then have to chuckle to myself at my capacity for self-delusion
and bullshit. 40-odd miles later and I stop in a village called Oundle for
some scran. Sunburnt, blooded (the nose is turning funny shades of black, blue
& purple) and happy from riding. Still buzzing from the amazing time the
Trip Out was.

Fed and watered and with second and third waves of
hungoverness hanging about at the back of my head will the bike restart? Of
course she wont. Back down in the gutter, messing with points…20 minutes later
and I’m back on route…

Even on a Bantam, and a misbehaving one at that, it's hard
not to feel at least a little bit cinematic bombing along quiet country roads
under a hot September sun in short sleeves, and I allow myself a little Jimmy
Dean-ism or two, which nearly comes painfully true as I fly round a bend and
just miss an oncoming Volvo on the other side.

Just as I’m starting to feel cocky about my makeshift
mechanical abilities, the bike up’s & dies once again…the points are still
slipping, and the bolt that is holding them in place seems to have given up the
ghost. This time the whole business takes longer to get going, and I’m starting
to wonder whether or not I’ll make it back in time for my mam’s birthday, or at
all come to think of it. Eventually, the Bantam splutters back into life after
several kickings, we get about 100 meters down the road and she dies again.
Check the points, they’re holding; hmm…it takes a few minutes to dawn on me
that I’ve run out of petrol, again. I guess I was so busy thinking about the
other problems, I clean forgot to check how far I’d come…running dry twice in
two days is pretty fuckin’ stupid. So it goes…start pushing the bike again, and
I must be getting buff by this point, good job Bantams are diddy little things,
when I see an AA van coming and flag him down. “aint got any petrol in the van
have you mate?” I venture “ach, forgot to fill up the jug earlier” say’s
he…”hold up, I’ll go get ya some” and with that he speeds off…what a gent. On
arriving back he tells me that he had a Bantam many moons ago, seems everybody
had one of these shit-ponies back in the day, and we shoot the shit about my
slipping points issue. Rummaging around in a plastic tub of miscellaneous bits,
the AA guy finds me a small brass spacer, which luck would have it just fits
over the makeshift bolt, improving the fit and slippage of the points no end.
Some folks just have it, man…I’m not even a member of the AA.

Once more we’re back on the road, its about 4:30pm and I’m
about 30 miles from home…I’ll make it on time to mam’s birthday no sweat,
alright. Open up the throttle, head down, on the home-straight…Kapow! Suddenly
my right leg is flooded with a gust of hot air and the bike looses the little
power it had. Before shuddering to a stop on the hard shoulder. The curse of
the stripped cylinder studs has come back to screw me royally, as the head has come
loose, sucking air in, which does no favours for a 2-stroke’s get-go. An old
fella in a land rover pulls over and begins to tell me how he had “one of those
when he was a lad” Yeah, yeah, save it granddad, I’ve heard it all before…I
think as I re-tighten the head nuts to the point where they just spin without
gripping. The bike fires up, but compression is way down…okay, it’s okay…I’ll
limp the remaining 20-odd miles back, I can do 25 the whole way…I’ll still make
it in time…

I keep way over to the left, so the late Sunday afternoon
traffic can pass me, as I creep along, hoping the cylinder head will hold, and
the piston doesn’t come shooting out into my nuts or something else equally as
stupid…I see the first sign which states ‘Nottingham’ and have to laugh to
myself about the whole ridicules, glorious spectacle of it all, as I limp along
towards home. Right on cue the back end suddenly slips out from under me and
starts juddering wildly. I pull up onto the hard shoulder for the last time
that day; somehow, somewhere I’ve managed to blow the back tyre out, which
curiously seems the only reasonable conclusion to the day.

The bike gives up the ghost, and with it, resignedly, so do
I. I ring my better half and ask her, in my sweetest tones, if she’d mind coming
to rescue me and the bike in the work van.

As I sit astride the god-forsaken BSA, waiting, the rear-end
slowly deflating, mimicking the sun slowly setting somewhere over
Leicestershire, turning the surrounding fields various shades of gold and pink
I know that I wouldn’t have missed this weekend for anything. These old bikes
are the journey, and the destination.

Thursday, September 13

It was nice at the Trip Out to be able to relax, knowing GKM photographic duties were being taken care of by people better with a camera than me (thanks Andy and Jonny).
Came away with a couple of goodies from my friends Rob and Keith at Eat Dust, including a new leather key fob for my bike. Really, everything they create is such immaculate quality. If you haven't checked 'em out, they're here.

And of course, as soon as I got back the bike came out... I didn't really miss it on the weekend as I was so busy (and I got to quench my thirst for the road in Renshaw's sidecar!) but it was nice to be in the saddle again. Maybe I should keep this one for the boy?

Tuesday, September 11

Benny won Best of Show, of course, with this sweet and perfect little Honda digger.

If the theme of the event was 60s/70s showbikes (it was!) then there were only two bikes in the running for me, and I couldn't give the prize to Andy P!

Of course, Benny has already won a GKM Best of Show for his Pan at the Hayride a couple of years back, but fuck it... he has led the way for the chopper scene in the UK for years now and deserves all the kudos he gets.

Monday, September 10

After one of Pete's exhaust pipes fell off in front of me on the A1 I knew it was going to be a memorable weekend.

And it was.

I hope these phone photos tell some sort of tale. You can fill in the gaps I'm sure.

So nice to party with good friends from Sweden, Belgium, France and the USA. The atmosphere was perfect, as was the weather. Only a later curfew could have made the weekend any better.

If you missed it, kick yourself. Hopefully you'll get there next year... but the first one is always the most talked about.

Well done Loggy, Estelle, Andy and Anna for putting on a great event. Good people, all.

Benny won the GKM Best in Show Davida helmet and trophy with his blue Honda digger. It summed up The Trip Out perfectly. And it's for sale... now as a show winner! Runner-up was Rinus de Jongh's beautifully detailed Shovel.

(And if you nicked my sunglasses, I hope your next blood test is very bad news.)